


Appearances of Things

by Ael_tRlailiiu



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, References to Depression, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 11:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ael_tRlailiiu/pseuds/Ael_tRlailiiu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My attempt to make sense of Iron Man 2, through Natasha's eyes, plus a little bit of Phil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My kids went through a bout of obsession with Iron Man 2. There are many things about this movie that make me crazy as a writer, so I wanted to try to see if I could figure things out from another perspective. Also, practice writing Natasha never hurts. Title is of course from her Seneca reference.

Natasha settled at the table opposite Nick and returned his minimal nod. The featureless conference room on the second floor of an equally featureless office building was barely large enough for the table and four chairs, and it didn't have a window. Without preamble, he slid a file folder across the table to her. The label read Stark, Anthony E.

Fury said, “Analysts flagged this first thing today.”

She opened the file and sorted through its contents—clippings, press releases, photographs. Fury's glance strayed toward the last pile, so she started with those. The pictures were in order by date. She found a half dozen publicity shots from press events and the Expo opening, and another handful that had presumably involved a boat and a very long lens, from the Malibu house. She studied each one in turn and nodded.

Next were the news reports. Six months later, and the press hadn't gotten done swooning over Iron Man, though the US government obviously had. _Senate Testimony Drama_ , one newspaper understated. On top of the stack sat a press release timestamped that morning, announcing Pepper Potts was taking over as Stark Industries CEO. Below that was an effusive public letter from the Boy Scouts of America, thanking Mr. Stark for his extravagant donation of artworks, and a few more from other charities that had recently had their wildest dreams come true.

She stacked the papers neatly and asked, “Any history of depression?” Her knowledge of psychology was more experiential than clinical, but those were text-book symptoms. Most people would say that was ridiculous, that anyone who had a life half as sweet as Stark's wouldn't think about ending it. That just went to show that most people didn't know much of anything.

“Not that anyone knows,” Fury answered. He wasn't surprised by the question. “Drinks a lot, might be self-medicating, but the analysts think it's something else. We'd like you to find out.”

She flipped back through the unauthorized photos, studied the lines and shadows Stark was hiding so carefully in public—more than were due to someone who wasn't so much burning the candle at both ends as taking a flamethrower to it. He had just _given his company—_ still worth millions even after losing their military contacts to Hammer—to his personal assistant to run. She wondered which of them that said more about.

“Why? I mean, what's our interest?” Natasha asked. “My understanding was that he's not interested in working with us. Or with anyone else,” she added, glancing at the report from the Senate hearing. She didn't say out loud that people might find it a pleasantly-less-complicated world without Iron Man in it, natural causes or not.

“Oh, he made that _crystal_ clear.” Fury grinned a little, without humor. “Otherwise I might do this myself. But things change.” He leaned back in his chair, which gave a sad little creak. Like most of the their equipment, it had seen better days. “You know how they can predict earthquakes, sometimes? 'Cause there's these little shock clusters ahead of the main event?”

“I've never heard Stark described as a _little_ anything.” She put everything back into the folder and picked it up.

“And I'm not willing to bet that the future is all sunshine. He makes one hell of a weapon. I like to keep an eye on that. Don't interfere, just find out what's going on. Go on downstairs, they'll work out a cover with you. Looks like he'll need a new PA. I leave it to you to come up with something.”

*

Natasha spent the rest of the morning working out details, and the night in a hotel room in LA. They would have her apartment and other cover elements in place by morning. For the moment, she made do with a box of files from the SHIELD archives—everything they had about the Starks, which turned out to be a lot more than she'd realized, going right back to the old days of the SSR, to Project Rebirth. She ate takeout Vietnamese, memorized the company history, brushed up her legal vocabulary, and practiced her new voice—slightly lower than her natural speaking tones, and with a trace of accent related to no actual language.

She had to catch Stark's interest without ending up in his bed, since history suggested that would be the end of their association. This was likely to be more challenging than killing him would have been. His personal security was so minimal as to be nonexistent. _One_ bodyguard? Unpredictability would make him a slightly more difficult target—he had no identified routine and apparently regarded appointments as suggestions at best—but it was a wonder no one had killed him yet. She had to be intelligent enough not to bore him, available enough to engage his chase instincts, and potentially troublesome enough that he wouldn't try too hard.

Oh, and she had to be a good enough assistant to credibly attempt to fill Potts' legendarily high-heeled shoes.

In the morning, Natalie Rushman went to work for the Stark Industries legal department. Two days later, she got herself selected as the one to run the corporate transfer paperwork over to the mansion. Most of the department had no interest whatsoever in any personal interaction with Mr. Stark, and making her do it probably qualified as hazing. She had spent most of her first two days listening in feigned horror and fascination to the veterans' stories.

Later that morning, she drove her little Mazda past the gatehouse and up the long driveway.

Natalie was expected, and between Fury's previous visit and architectural magazine articles, she knew the layout. She looked around with interest in the guise of hunting for the stairs. Very modern, very American to her eyes. The minimalist design with its sweeping curves and deftly placed artworks said _money_ with a rock-solid confidence. The most expensive single item in sight was the view, simply and dramatically framed by the expansive windows. The space wasn't cozy by any stretch, but it looked comfortable and soothing. Natalie could imagine lazy afternoons and evenings there, watching the sun set, someone playing the piano. Did Stark play? If he did, no one had mentioned it. Natalie could, a little. She noted the lack of photos, of anything identifiable as personal, and went downstairs.

  
  


She got the job.

At the end of the first day, Natalie got back to her apartment and threw her shoes across the room, then simply collapsed on the couch for a few minutes before she could gather the resources to rub her aching feet. No wonder Potts stayed rail-thin and looked so frayed around the edges—it's not just a job, it's a cross-training regimen. The problem with trying to replace her was that “personal assistant” was a gross mischaracterization of her actual job, which was to be a kind of universal adapter between Tony Stark and the rest of the planet. Being psychic would be useful, too.

Usually, her surveillance work didn't require quite so much... work.

At the end of the first week, she put in a call to Fury.

“How's the private sector treating you?” he asked.

“There's not enough money in the world,” she said, and he chuckled.

“Impressions?”

_Quiet reserve. Not._ “Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to have affected his activity levels.”

“Whatever it is, huh?”

“Other than some erratic behavior, I haven't seen any symptoms to work from. He keeps in good physical shape. There's nothing on his schedule that could be clandestine medical appointments. He does look tired, and he seems to be living on energy drinks, for whatever that's worth, but I'm thinking it's not cancer.”

“Personal impressions?”

“Rumor does not exaggerate,” she said. “He's a walking disaster and seems to enjoy it. He's also hopelessly smitten with Potts. Either she doesn't realize this, or she's doing an impressive job of ignoring it.”

“Chances that she knows what's up?”

“I think that she doesn't. I've been keeping an eye on them together.” Looking for any hint of concern, any shared glance or a cryptic comment that would suggest that Potts knew the situation, Natalie had seen Potts annoyed, exasperated, and occasionally outright angry with Stark, but nothing softer. Either she wasn't human, or she didn't know. “She doesn't like me very much, having a hard time letting go of responsibilities. No other candidates who might know, either. He doesn't seem to really be close to anyone.”

“What about physical records?”

“Nothing yet. His personal security is terrible, same for most of the house, but there's nothing important up there.”

“Nothing?” Fury sounded skeptical.

“Well, nothing but art and a nice TV. All of the armor and other technology stays in the workshop, and _that's_ drum-tight, so he's not a complete idiot. Might take me a few weeks.”

“I hope we have them.”


	2. Chapter 2

She tried, hoping that if she was left alone at the house for a bit she might find a way in, but they wouldn't hear of her not going to Monaco. Pepper deserved a break, some kind of downtime as she transitioned into her new responsibilities, and she wasn't going to get one at this rate.

None of them did, as it happened.

Natasha filed a report afterward and didn't spare her subject. She eavesdropped shamelessly (spy, _hello_ ), watched Stark's mood flip between manic and morose at ever-shorter intervals, watched him cling to his friends and then flee their company, and couldn't for her life determine how to pry the truth out of him.

Her interest at that point was academic. She understood from the things that Fury did not say that he had decided to let this sad affair play out to its end without interference. Natasha was inclined to agree. SHIELD had dodged a bullet in Stark's decision to keep his distance; the man was simply too unstable for them to place any trust in.

Fury didn't say as much, but she guessed that he was spending his time in D.C. in the aftermath of the Senate hearing. If anyone was going to swoop in and nab Stark's tech, it ought to be SHIELD, rather than the Army or any of the others now knife-fighting each other for the honor. Having left behind any notion of loyalty to country, Natasha acknowledged herself curious what Stark would do if things were allowed to reach that point.

It wasn't the martini or her partly-unbuttoned blouse, but despair and no little bit of fear that did it.

_If this was the last birthday party you were ever going to have...._

Natasha Romanov had known a lot of men who were going to die soon; she was not in the habit of feeling sorry for them.

Two hours later, in the safety of the first closet she could find—having had no choice but to take cover—she decided that she should have seen this coming. Stark had obviously been nerving himself up for _something_. She had expected a more prosaic form of self-destruction, was all.

Still, an opportunity; when quiet finally fell again, she dug out a few bits of special equipment disguised as makeup, walked silently down the stairs into the house's shattered lower level, and went to work. Then she called Fury.

“It's 1 a.m., agent.”

Only 2, in her time zone, which put him... not where she expected him to be. “I've got your answers, and a few other things.” She summarized her findings and the events of the night.

Fury was silent for a few moments, then said, “Where is Stark now?”

“I don't know,” she was chagrined to admit. “We've got eyes out.”

“Track him down. I'm on my way.”

“What?” Natasha did not take well to being surprised twice in one night.

“You heard me, Agent Romanov. Things have changed. I'll brief you when I get there.”

She met him at the airport. “We've got a visual.” Her gaze raked his imposing figure, cloaked as ever in black leather and all manner of secrets. His one eye met hers; he nodded. She read excitement, barely held in check, and raised an eyebrow.

“Good.” They delayed only long enough for Fury to collect a small parcel that had evidently been air-delivered from SHIELD HQ to coincide with his arrival. Then they climbed into her tiny car and laid rubber out of the parking lot. After a few silent minutes, Fury gave her a sidelong grin. “You going to ask me what the hell is going on?”

“Should I?” _Twenty-four hours ago you were prepared to let him off himself however he liked. Now you're getting personally involved, when you should be in Washington, arguing with the Air Force._

“We've had an Event.”

She could hear the capital letter. “Ah.”

“In New Mexico.”

That changed the equation. Fury would tell her no more than he had to, she understood that, but if SHIELD's ostensible reason for being had finally manifested, if they faced an actual threat from beyond Earth, they would need every asset they could lay hands on—however self-obsessed and self-destructive they might be.

“Poor timing,” she commented. “From the data and observation, I don't think he's got more than a few days left, at most.”

“There may yet be a way through this.” He patted the anonymous parcel. “Lab whipped this up. You read all of the material on Howard Stark, the arc reactor.”

“I did.”

“Those records aren't complete. It's possible that there's an answer in there.” He laid out the play for the meeting.

Natasha gave him a dubious look. “So we've had this information all this time?” She didn't question Fury's previous decision to keep it back—SHIELD was all about secrets, about keeping a thumb on the balance of power, and an energy race on the scale he described was nothing to unleash lightly—but she didn't think Stark was likely to take the revelation well.

“We have.” Fury gave her that grin again, without mercy and with only a trace of humor. “That's why the only way this might work is if we get him off balance and _keep_ him there. He spends five minutes thinking about it, and this is going to get ugly.”

“He'd go after us rather than saving his own life?” Even if the chance of that happening sounded like a ridiculous long shot to her, banking on a presumed genius Natasha could only regard with skepticism.

“What do you think?”

She considered the previous night, and a man who had not so much burned his bridges as turned them into radioactive ash, and lifted a shoulder in qualified agreement. “And if this somehow works? Then what? You want me to bring him in?” Stark wasn't entirely without good points, technology aside—physical courage, loyalty (however his friends might currently view _that_ ; Natasha could be more objective), determination.

“No. I want you to write me up a report. And this is what it's going to say.” He explained, and in the face of her surprise, Nick gave a single sigh. It spoke to the week he had just been through, and the one he expected to have after this, and he gestured for her to keep her eyes on the road. They were almost there. “The thing about Starks—about Howard at least, and it looks like his kid, too—is that they are _almost_ as smart as they think they are. Which is pretty god-damned smart. You can't drive the bastards, and you can't lead them—not for long. _If_ this works? I would like him pissed off enough to _prefer_ nothing more to do with us, and to make sure that he thinks that's his own idea. Based on what you've seen, I'm not sure that having Tony Stark too interested in SHIELD business would be a _good_ thing. I would also prefer that he not be so pissed off that he decides to mess with us on principle, for reasons which I hope are obvious. What do you think?”

“I see.” Given those parameters, she nodded. Pride could be a funny thing, and a dangerous weapon in many cases. It was also the only lever they had (well, without getting into hostage-taking, and that wouldn't end well). This approach would put Stark off while leaving them with a hook, should whatever happened in New Mexico require it. “Yes. That ought to work.” This wasn't going to be fun for anyone.

They pulled into the parking lot at Randy's Donuts just after sunrise. Fury passed her the parcel and waited until she had concealed the syringe before he got out of the car, leather coat flapping in the morning breeze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only explanation that makes sense to me about the way SHIELD went about things in IM2 is that they were *trying* to piss Tony off. I've taken minor liberties with the timeline—as far as I can determine from the published MCU timeline, they messed up their own continuity between IM2 and Thor; they have Tony's conversation with Fury happening before Thor's banishment, in which case half of that conversation makes no sense. Anyway, I welcome commentary and alternative interpretations. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A friend wanted me to try my hand with Phil, so here's a bit with him that rounds out the movie.

Phil had never seen HQ so busy. The sleepy old building was downright bustling now, so that he had to close the door when Fury called with the mission.

“Of course, sir. I'll be on the next flight.”

“Natasha can give you the details once you're on the ground here. One way or another, I don't think you'll be here long.”

“I can be flexible, sir.”

He set off into the basement archives, meticulously organized under a heavy layer of dust, rack after metal rack of records boxes and sealed cases. They had history enough here to make anyone's career, but nowhere near enough personnel to sort through it. Only the highest priority projects got funding these days. Right now that meant data crunching that might find the Hulk, and precious little else.

In a distant corner that hadn't been touched since their move to this building, he found the box Fury wanted. A type-written inventory sheet had been taped to the top. Phil removed that and rounded up a few more agents to safeguard the box itself, then drove home just long enough to pack. One nice thing about his job as opposed to Natasha's, he never had to worry about dressing for some other identity. Winging westward, he contemplated the search for Dr. Banner, this thing in New Mexico, Stark's latest melt-down, and wondered if they might actually get to hire some people. Phil Coulson had spent ten years watching SHIELD dwindle, had gotten his last three promotions because no one else wanted the job, had seen request after request for funding come back without even being read. It was quite a come-down for the organization that had arguably saved the world from HYDRA.

“You were there for the last one of these, right?” one of the other agents asked.

“I was.”

“Do you suppose this is going to be... like that one?” The question he doubtless wanted to ask was _how high was the body count that time?_

“I'm hoping for fewer explosions,” Phil said, and that shut the younger man up for a few minutes.

Only a few, though. “How'd you end up running that one?”

Phil gave up and folded his newspaper. “Prior knowledge of a sort. I had met Howard Stark a few times, back before I joined SHIELD.” Phil Coulson knew everything there was to know about Captain America, and by extension about everyone who had ever been near him. Howard Stark had been neck-deep in Rebirth, had sent all of those futile expeditions out to search for Captain America's body. That link had been a major reason for Phil's interest in the job with SHIELD to begin with, even if it paid nothing and had none of the cachet of its government siblings.

“Huh. So... what was he like?”

“Unquestionably a genius. Fading, I suppose you might say. He didn't move well with the times any more.” He had been surprised to learn that Howard had kept his involvement with SHIELD secret even from his family.

Of course, that initial assignment had ended with Pepper's sympathetic hand on his shoulder while Phil closed his eyes and prayed for patience and just one tiny little lightning bolt.

“It was a good try,” she had said, barely audible over the pandemonium that had erupted in the main room.

He had opened his eyes, not quite glaring. “Did you expect this?” She looked surprisingly unruffled for a woman who had been running for her life six hours before.

“Not expect, exactly. There's never been much point in trying to predict Tony.” After a moment she had endeared herself to him forever by asking, “Are you going to get in trouble?”

“Let me go find out.”

And now this business with Natasha's assignment. He and Fury had talked, of course, before pulling her in, had agreed that Phil's chance of finding out what was going on with Stark was somewhere on the far side of “none.”

Pointless or not, Phil had put a fair amount of effort since then into the predicting effort, such that he allowed himself a smile when Natasha called.

“Coulson, you were supposed to be _watching_ him.”

“I tried. You've seen the way he drives. I take it he ended up at the office?” He wandered through the upstairs rooms. Debris crunched under his polished shoes.

“He's just left. I was under the impression that you were going to keep him there.”

“Evolving situation.” Phil had issued a direct challenge in the man's own house. The question in his mind hadn't been _whether_ Stark was going to leave, it was where he would end up. “What happened at the office?”

“He talked to Potts, collected an architectural model, and he'd damn well better be on his way back to you now. Does he seriously not _care_ whether he dies?”

“Not for me to say. What's Ms. Potts doing?” He would have liked to see her again, catch up a bit, see how she was weathering the madness. They hadn't had a chance to talk in DC, and Phil didn't have many entirely sane people in his life.

“She's in the executive washroom, where I'm sure she allowed herself to cry for less than three minutes and is now repairing her makeup. Can we recruit her for the Initiative instead?”

Phil contemplated the ocean view through the window. “I'll run it past Fury. Did he tell her, then? About the possibly dying thing.”

“No. He might have gotten around to it, given an hour or so, but she threw him out after five minutes.”

“What did he manage to do in that time that caused tears?” Phil wouldn't have thought Pepper the sort, even for three minutes. Though she had been under stress for a long while now.

Natasha sighed. “Self-destructive jackass. I'm going to have to do some very fast talking in a minute, by the way, since your boy thought it would be _funny_ to blow my cover here, and we're leaving for the airport in two hours.”

“I'm sure you're up to it. Have a good flight.” He rang off and continued his thoughtful survey of the house. A good agent passed up no opportunity to understand his target. A half hour later, one of the others let him know that Stark was back, but he didn't come upstairs.

A further half hour after that, the junior agent who had been assigned to the phones came to find Phil by the pool, considering the endless, perfect sky.

“Uh, sir? He's gotten around the security we put on.”

“And?”

“Placing hardware orders. I don't know what most of this stuff is.” He proffered a sheet of paper.

Phil scanned the _very long_ list. He didn't know what most of it was, either, but he knew what it signified. He opened his mouth and paused at the faint but unmistakeable sound of a sledgehammer hitting concrete.

The other agent jumped and said, “Sir? Should we, um, do something?”

Phil crossed his arms and looked at the ocean some more and considered, just for his own amusement, the potential outcomes of annoying Stark while he was holding an actual sledgehammer. “What do you think, agent?”

_I don't get paid enough for this_ didn't actually come out of his mouth, but it obviously crossed his mind as the younger man took a step back. “I'll get back to monitoring the phones, then.”

“Do that.”

The night and most of the day passed peacefully for the agents on watch. Coulson made sure they kept out of the way. In the afternoon, he got a call from Fury.

“Signs point to this being the real deal. I want you on this, want everyone we've got down here.”

“Yes, sir.” _First contact._ Phil was astonished at how calm he felt.

“Locals are running wild, I want a lid on this yesterday,” Fury said. “Things at that end?”

“Looking up, sir.”

“Good. Get your ass out here.”

Phil went downstairs. For someone who hadn't slept properly in a week, Stark looked chipper. That was probably a good sign. Amid the chaos, an unexpected and familiar outline leaped out at Phil.

Their conversation was as close as anyone at SHIELD was going to get to a “thank you,” which was to say, nowhere near one. All secrets and motives considered, it was probably as close as they deserved, so that was all right. In the months after Puente Antigua, the organization grew at a dizzying pace. Phil had never been so busy, but he still took a moment every once in a while, to try to figure out how he might get his hands on that shield.


End file.
